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Notes from Japan

Feeling Anxious in Happy Village

Narratives and photographs by Suzanne Kamata

A few weeks ago, my daughter invited me to go on an outing with her and her helper. My daughter, who is deaf and uses a wheelchair, lives in a group home in Osaka. She is becoming more and more independent, but she does have kind people around her to give her support, including a helper who is also deaf and uses Japanese Sign Language.

Actually, my daughter invited our entire family to accompany her and her helper on a weekend to Happy Village, a recreational facility in Kobe especially for persons with disabilities. We had visited the onsite stables years ago, and our twins had ridden around a ring on ponies. Having such pleasant memories of the place, I looked forward to visiting again.

My husband declined due to a golf tournament, and my son, who had just entered college as a graduate student, was concerned that he would have too much homework. My daughter informed me that her brother would meet us for a meal.

Although I was looking forward to seeing my daughter and getting to know her helper, I did have a few concerns. For one, I don’t have the confidence to drive in the megapolises of Japan. Kobe, for example, is a confusing city with many ramps, overpasses, and one-way streets, not to mention the traffic. I knew that Happy Village was on the outskirts, however, and I thought that maybe I could get myself there by car. I could have gone by bus or train, but it would have taken me two or three times as long to get there.

In addition, I was a bit worried about communication. I can converse with my daughter, more or less, in Japanese Sign Language, but my signing is not perfect. Since leaving home, my daughter’s vocabulary has expanded, and her signing has sped up. When among fluent JSL users, I can’t always follow the flurry of their fingers. Nevertheless, I know that my daughter often struggles to keep up with what hearing people are saying, and I thought it would be a valuable experience.

A couple days before, my daughter sent me a Google Maps link to the restaurant where we would meet. We would have a meal and then proceed to Happy Village. On the day of, I packed a bag, filled my car with gas, and set out. I had no idea what we would be doing. On trips with my husband, every hour was pre-planned. I thought it would be nice to just go with the flow. I was looking forward to seeing my two kids.

I managed to arrive at the restaurant with ten minutes to spare. I staked out a table and sat down to wait. While perusing my phone, I came across a link that I thought would interest my son. I sent it to him. He replied with a laughing emoji, followed by “Are you coming to Kobe tomorrow?”

A cold sweat broke out over me. “Tomorrow? I thought it was today.”

“She told me tomorrow,” he texted back.

“Oh, no.” I quickly scrolled through our communications and confirmed that we were indeed meeting him the following day. It was now ten minutes after the time I had agreed to rendezvous with my daughter at this restaurant. Or so I thought. Was I supposed to meet her tomorrow? Would I have to find a hotel for the night?

Panicking, I sent my daughter a text and a photo of the restaurant. “I’m here!”

She texted back that they would be a little late, and that there would be six of them.

Six! I had thought that there would only be the three of us. Now I was feeling really intimidated. I am an introvert, and I know my limits. The more people there are around me, the more I retreat into myself. Plus, there was the issue of communication.

Finally, my daughter and her entourage arrived. I met her helper, the helper’s husband, the helper’s twin sister, an older woman with cropped hair and rainbow socks, and a young man about my daughter’s age. We got down to the business of ordering food via the tablet on the table, and sorting our basic facts, such as my age, and that we would be meeting my son the following day at Sannomiya Station.

Sannomiya Station! That was in a busy district in the heart of Kobe. I hadn’t known that we were actually going into the city. I managed to sign that I was scared of driving in such an unfamiliar place. I was beginning to realise that I should have pried more details about this trip out of my daughter beforehand.

Three hours later, I followed the others in my car to Happy Village. My daughter and I were in one room, the others in their own rooms. By this time, my social battery was waning. I was ready to take a bath and curl up in bed with a book. My daughter, who is an extrovert, went down the hall for a couple more hours of JSL conversation and cake with her friends.

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and stopped by the stables. Just as before, children rode ponies around the ring. My daughter zoomed around in her wheelchair, and the rest of us tried to keep up.

Next, we dropped by the helper’s apartment. I was invited to leave my car in the parking garage, and ride in the car with the others, for which I was very grateful. As we headed toward Kobe, I noted how quiet it was inside the car. No one tried to talk or sign. It would have been dangerous for the driver to take his hands off the wheel to form words, or to look away from the road for too long.

We finally connected with my son, and went to a restaurant. Because there were so many of us, we split up. My kids and I sat at one table, and the others sat at another. I brought my son up in English, and it remains our lingua franca. After my son and daughter exchanged a few words in sign language, my son and I talked a bit about the recent political situation in the United States. Although my daughter was curious, I couldn’t quite explain to her what we were talking about in JSL. I encouraged her to write notes to her brother. They communicated by pen and paper for a while.

After lunch, my son went back to his apartment to prepare a PowerPoint for his class the next day. The rest of us wandered around the city, window-shopping, until it was time for me to leave. My daughter wasn’t ready to go home, so the helper’s husband offered to give me a ride back to my car.

On the way, he said, “When you were talking to your son, your daughter didn’t understand.”

“That’s true,” I conceded. “We were speaking in English.” Although I had wanted to bring up my daughter in English, circumstances made it too difficult. Yet, my son was the only one in our family that I could freely communicate with in my native language.

“I felt sorry for her,” the helper’s husband continued.

I nodded. I had an idea of how my daughter felt. Although I had lived in Japan for many years, I often didn’t fully understand what people were saying around me.

He activated an app on his smartphone, which was affixed to the dashboard, which rendered spoken words into text. He suggested that my daughter could use such an app. I tried to explain that she already knew how to use the app, but for some reason she hadn’t tried to employ it in the restaurant.

I guess I could have been offended by his words, but instead I was moved. I was happy that my daughter was surrounded by people who cared so much about her, who were looking out for her best interests. How wonderful that she had finally found her tribe.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

On Safari in South Africa

Photographs and Narrative by Suzanne Kamata

On our third morning in the Lowveld, my travel companion and I woke up at 4:00 A.M. for our third game drive in Kruger National Park. We’d signed up for this over a year ago when we first booked ourselves on this group tour. We didn’t know then that it would be raining.

The other ten members of our group had chosen other options. Some were planning to hang out at the lodge, probably anticipating a day of lounging by the pool while kudu and impalas lingered nearby nibbling grass. Another cohort had signed up for a different sightseeing tour, involving waterfalls, with a later starting time. My friend and I were here, however, for the animals.

She and I had first met in Japan. We’d lived in the same town. Our kids had gone to the same schools, and we’d taught at the same universities. When she had moved back to Australia, we’d remained in touch. Both of us loved to travel, and both had dreamed of going on safari in Africa. Neither of us knew of anyone else who shared the same dream, so we vowed to go together. I had imagined that it would be years before I would be able to afford such a trip, but a little over a year ago, she’d come across a great deal. And now here we were, in South Africa.

Half-asleep, we quickly dressed, stuffed our sack-breakfasts into our backpacks, and stumbled out the heavy wooden door into the still dark morning. A light rain was falling. Although signs warned of roaming wild animals, and we’d seen plenty, it seemed safe to walk up to the office building to find our driver. His Toyota safari truck was already parked outside. After a few minutes, he appeared, and we climbed into the back middle seats of the open-sided truck, hoping to stay clear of the rain.

Our driver and guide, a local who drove 20-40 kilometers per hour over the speed limit and doled out one interesting animal fact per sighting, handed us lined ponchos to keep us warm on the forty-minute drive to the park. Then we zoomed off, passing pecan and macadamia groves, on the way to Numbi Gate. People were already waiting at bus stops along the way, probably on their way to work.

As the sky gradually lightened, we could make out the names of the shops along the road: Dragon Flame Car Wash, No Error Driving School, Drama’s Sneaker Wash, God is Able Beauty Salon, and an alarming number of small businesses offering funeral services.

When we finally reached the entrance to the game park, the guide parked and got out to register. Although the parking area had been crowded the previous two days, on this morning, we were the only ones there.

We had seen quite a few animals over the past two days, including elephants, giraffes, zebras, a rare white rhino, and a mama lion and cubs, albeit from a distance. We rattled off our wish list to the guide.

“A hippo out of the water,” my friend said. “And a male lion.”

I had been lucky enough to see both on a previous trip to Rwanda, but I had yet to see a leopard, one of the so-called “big five,” or a cheetah.

“When is the last time you saw a leopard or a cheetah?” I asked.

“I saw a leopard a week ago,” he said. “And a cheetah yesterday.”

He warned us, however, that because of the rain, we might not see anything at all. The animals might be seeking shelter. We understood and accepted that.

A few minutes into our drive, he braked the truck and pointed out a turtle making its way across the road. Understanding that this might be our biggest sighting of the day, I took a video of the creature with my smartphone. Soon after, we spotted some impalas. Although we’d seen so many the two days before that the guide no longer stopped for them, on this morning, we gave them our full attention.

And then we saw something unusual—a pack of African wild dogs alongside and in the middle of the road. I had never seen canines with such colouring. Their fur was brown and black, almost tortoiseshell. These dogs were featured on a signboard at the park entrance indicating the day’s sightings.

“There are only about 150 of these dogs in the park,” our guide told us. He mentioned that they were expert hunters, that they attacked in groups. Since Kruger National Park is vast, with an area of 19,485 square kilometers, much of the terrain being well away from the road, I realized how lucky we were to see these dogs. They trotted along, sniffing at the road, mindless of the truck slowly following them.

By this time, the rain had let up. Although we did not manage to see any hippos out of the water (they mostly come out at night to eat grass), we did see a herd of wildebeest, some vervet monkeys, an elephant, a water buffalo, baboons, and a Martial eagle perched on a high bare branch. And then our guide got a message on his phone and said, “From now, we’re not stopping for anything. Someone has spotted some cheetahs.”

As he sped ahead, we crossed our fingers and readied our cameras. I expected the cheetahs to be far off in the distance, where they wouldn’t be scared off by the sound of cars, as the lions were. Why else would they stay in one place long enough for us to reach them? As it turned out, however, five cheetah cubs were gathered together, sitting still, gazing intently into the bush. They were near the road, only about fifty meters away.

“They’re waiting for their mother,” the guide said. “Maybe she will come back while we are waiting.”

My friend and I took turns admiring them through binoculars. How patiently they watched the impalas nearby. How diligently they groomed themselves. They were gorgeous, leaving us breathless.

We waited awhile, but there were others eager to see them, so our guide suggested it was time to move on. “Are you happy?” he asked us.

“Yes, very,” we both said. 

Later, as we returned to the lodge, we thought about how jealous the rest of the group would be when they heard about the cheetahs. The rain started to fall again.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

Finding Inspiration in Shikoku’s Iya Valley

Photographs and narrative by Suzanne Kamata

When I first arrived in Japan over thirty-five years ago, one of the first places that I visited was the Iya Valley, deep in the interior of Tokushima Prefecture. It wasn’t easy to get there then, and it’s not easy now. From Tokushima, there are no trains – only very occasional buses, or you can brave the narrow, twisty mountain roads sans guardrails and drive on your own. At the time I visited, I recall no restaurants or hotels, but apparently some abandoned houses have been refurbished as high-end inns.

Tea gardens of Iya

The Iya Valley attracts adventurous travelers who are up for white-water rafting on the river that cuts through the Oboke Gorge. Another thrill that can be had is crossing Iya Kazurabashi, the swaying vine bridge that spans the gorge. I crossed the bridge on that first visit years ago, and I remember clinging to the rope railings while taking careful steps, my heart hammering all the while.

The vine bridge is periodically reconstructed, but the original was said to have been created by aristocrats who had fled the capital of Kyoto. The Heike clan, who have been immortalised in the Japanese literary classic Heike Monogatari, were defeated by the Minamoto clan in the Genpei War (1180–1185) at the end of the Heian Period. They found the wilds of Shikoku to be the perfect hideout. Their descendants continue to live in the area.

I found this story incredibly fascinating. As a university student, I had been captivated by descriptions of Heian court life – the ladies-in-waiting in their layered brocade kimono, lover’s messages exchanged in the form of poetry. As anyone who has seen the recent miniseries Shogun has noted, ancient Japan was filled with aesthetic delights. Imagine going from a wooden house with fragrant tatami mats, sliding paper doors, and an ornamental garden to an untamed mountain, probably teeming with wild boar and monkeys.

I was inspired by this place to write the short story “Down the Mountain,” which appears in my newly published collection River of Dolls and Other Stories. I blended ancient history with the Japanese folktale “Kaguyahime,” or “The Moon Princess.” I was also influenced by reports that I had read of the forced sterilisation of Japanese women who were mentally ill. The story begins like this:

You say that you want to leave this mountain, daughter, and I know that your will is strong. For you, there is not enough of life in selling fish-on-a-stick or serving noodles to strangers. You look at the swaying vine bridge and see a magnet for tourists, those busloads of people who come up from the city, filling the valley with sounds of laughter and loud voices. I will not stand in your way, but before you go, there are some things that you must know.

Last week my husband, who is newly retired, took a trip to the Iya Valley as a tour-guide-in-training. While I was at work, he crossed the bridge and was treated to thick udon noodles in broth and a sampling of teas grown on the mountain. A local woman sang a traditional song to the group of visitors.

“Have you ever been to Iya?” he asked me when he’d returned home.

“Yes,” I told him. “Long ago. As a matter of fact, I even wrote a story about it.”

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

Weekend in Futaba at the Japan Writers Conference

Narrative and photographs by Suzanne Kamata 

Many years ago, when my children were small and I was working on my first-to-be-published novel Losing Kei, I joined an online writing group made up of members of the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese. Since I live off the beaten track, on the island of Shikoku, this group was a godsend for me. Not only was I able to connect with non-Japanese women raising biracial kids in a supposedly homogenous country, but I could also connect with others writing in English. 

I ultimately finished my novel. I was not the only member of this group who went on to publish books. In addition to writing and publishing, another wonderful thing that came out of this now defunct virtual community was the Japan Writers Conference, which was first held in 2008. One of the members, poet and writer Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, whose most recent book is the searing LUNA (Isobar Press, 2024), proposed a grassroot gathering of writers in Japan. There would be no keynote speaker, no fees for participants, and no payments for presenters. We would just get together and share our writing and our expertise. 

Another member, Diane Hawley Nagatomo, who recently published her second novel, Finding Naomi (Black Rose Writing, 2024) after an illustrious career in academia, volunteered to host the initial conference at her university. Chanoyu University, in Tokyo, is famously the institution attached to the kindergarten attended by the Japanese royal family. It was also the site of the first Japan Writers Conference. 

Since then, the conference has been held at various universities and colleges around the country, including in Okinawa, Hokkaido, Kyoto, Iwate, and at Tokushima University, hosted by me in 2016. Over the years, many notable speakers have appeared, such as Vikas Swarup, whose novel Q & A became the film Slumdog Millionaire, popular American mystery writer Naomi Hirahara, and Eric Selland, poet and translator of The New York Times bestseller The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. The list goes on and on. 

This past year, the conference was held not at a university, but at the Futaba Business Incubation and Community Centre. 

When I told my husband that I was going to Futaba, he looked it up on a map. 

“That’s in the exclusionary zone,” he said, somewhat alarmed. 

Indeed, the conference would be held on the coast in Fukushima Prefecture, not too far from the site of the nuclear power plant which was hit by a tsunami in 2011. For years, there have been concerns about radiation, however the area is staging a comeback. The host of this year’s conference would be the Futaba Area Tourism Research Association, an organisation committed to “promoting tourism and land operations, inviting people to rediscover the charms of Fukushima’s coastal areas. The company’s mission is to bring people worldwide to this unique place that has recovered from a nuclear disaster.” 

“I don’t think they would hold the conference there if it wasn’t safe,” I told him.  

The JWC website reported that although the town had been evacuated after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, evacuation orders had been lifted for about 10% of the town on August 30, 2022.  Decontamination efforts are still underway. New homes are being built, new businesses are emerging, and the annual festival Daruma-Ichi resumed in 2023. The areas hosting the JWC had been deemed safe, “with radiation levels regularly monitored and within acceptable limits.” I reserved a room at the on-site ARM Hotel and went ahead with my plans. 

Getting to Futaba from my home in Tokushima took all day. I got up before the sun and took a bus, a plane, then a succession of trains. As I got closer to my destination, I noted the absence of buildings along the coast. I tried to imagine the houses that might have been there before the grasses had gone wild. Later, the appearance of earth-moving equipment suggested future development.   

From the nearly deserted train station, I took a bus, and then lugged my suitcase to the hotel’s registration desk. There was nothing around besides the convention center and the hotel. I saw a very tall breakwater, blocking my view of the ocean. I felt as if I were on the edge of the world. 

The evening before the conference began, I had dinner at the hotel restaurant, where I met up with some writers I had gotten to know at past conferences. Ordinarily, we might have moved on to a bar to continue our literary discussions, but after the restaurant closed at eight, there was nowhere else to go. There was some talk of going to the beach. A few of us went out into the night and sat on the seawall, sipping Scotch from paper cups, and talking under the stars. At one point, we contemplated the waves below, all those who were washed out to sea and remained missing. 

The conference began the following morning. I was amazed that, in spite of the effort that it had taken to get there, presenters had come from all over the world – a Syrian poet who was based in Canada, a poet from Great Britain, a Japanese writer and translator who lived in Germany, a Tunisian writer and motivational speaker who’d flown in from UAE. 

I gave a presentation on writing for language learners and shared my haiku in another session. Others presented on a variety of topics including literary correspondence, storytelling and tourism, climate fiction, and writing the zuihitsu[1]. In between sessions, I caught up with old friends and met new ones. On Saturday night, there was a banquet with bentos featuring delicacies such as smoked duck, mushroom rice, and salad with Hokkigai clams. 

In retrospect, it was especially meaningful to attend the conference in Futaba, and to feel that we were able to play some small part in the rejuvenation of the area. It was also exciting to interact with writers who came from so far away. Although it’s still very much a grassroots event, it has become truly international. 

American authors Karen Hill Anton and David Joiner talk about literary correspondence
Paul Rossiter, publisher of Isobar Press, introduces new Japan-related titles.

(To find out about the next Japan Writers Conference and sign up for the mailing list, go to https://japanwritersconference.org/) 

[1] A loose collection of personal essays

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

Educating for Peace in Rwanda

By Suzanne Kamata

Photographs by Suzanne Kamata

In late September, I visited Rwanda with a professor of Naruto University of Education in Japan and two Japanese graduate students. We traveled from Kigali, the capital city, to the Kayonza District, a rural area, to learn about the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi which necessitated peace education in Rwanda. In one month, around a million Tutsis and their sympathisers were systematically and viciously slaughtered by members of the Hutu ethnic group following government directives. This “final solution” was enacted via machetes and spears, often by classmates, co-workers, and neighbors. Just about everyone in Rwanda was affected by the horror in some way. Our driver told us that his father, sister, and brother were murdered at that time. Our interpreter, Claude Mugabe, was also a genocide survivor. He had been eight years old at the time, and he said that he remembered everything.

The animosity between two ethnic groups may be traced to the colonial period, when Belgians favoured the Tutsi, who typically had tall, slender bodies, high foreheads, and narrow features, for prestigious positions and privileges. Periodic violence against the Tutsis began in the 1950s and continues to this day, but Rwandans have made great efforts to ensure that the events of 1994 never occur again. We learned that Rwandan citizens are no longer required to carry identity cards indicating their ethnicity.

We visited a center which is a part of the Peace Education Initiative Rwanda. The three pillars of their program are peacebuilding and reconciliation, youth empowerment, and social economic development. We first gathered in tent where some photos of the massacre were displayed. Some community members, including those who had been alive at the time of the genocide and high school students, were gathered to share their thoughts and experiences with us.

Photograph by Suzanne Kamata

As birds sang and chickens squawked in the background, Mugabe explained some ways in which the people of his community have sought reconciliation, including sharing goats, building together, and working alongside one another. He emphasised that it’s important that everyone have their basic needs met. To this end, the community members fight against malnutrition, which can lead to diseases, through gardening vegetables and rearing animals such as goats and chickens, which provide milk and eggs.

Another important part of reconciliation, as we learned, is forgiveness. We heard moving –and often shocking – testimonies from both a victim and a perpetrator. We first heard from a woman who was a victim. She told us how she was harassed by her teachers after they learned that she was a Tutsi, and ultimately forced to drop out of school. She said that she spent some days and nights hiding in the bush. Her house was burned, and nothing remained. On April 9, she left her hiding place and sought refuge in the Catholic church. It was full, however, so she went to the cinema. On April 14, the Hutus attacked the church. Although the woman lost her sight, she said that she later received health insurance, and “Today we’re living in peace and harmony.”

Next, we heard from a man who was 30 years old, with a wife and two children, at the time of the genocide. He admitted that he had critical thinking ability, but he participated in the attack on the church, anyway, along with other civilians and members of the military. They were armed with machetes, guns, and grenades, and given thirty minutes to exterminate everyone in the church. They surrounded the church and opened fire, but they “succeeded” in killing only thirteen people the first day. He did not return the second day because his wife was sick. Later, he fled to Tanzania, but after being repatriated to Rwanda, he, like many others, was arrested and sent to prison. “I internalized what I did,” he said through the interpreter. He was filled with remorse. When he was released, he bought a cow for the victims, and asked for forgiveness. In the beginning, only 12 people were involved, but now almost 3,000 participate in peace education in the village.

In addition to these community activities, peace education is an important part of the school curriculum in Rwanda. As in Japan, where students go on field trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to learn about the atomic bombing of those cities, Rwandan students visit sites related to the genocide, such as churches which now serve as memorials to those who died. We visited two such memorials. In one, the blood-stained clothing of the murdered was stacked on the church pews, while their photos were displayed on the wall. There were glass cases full of skulls, some with bullet holes, or larger gashes caused by clubs or machetes, as well as coffins full of bones. Though graphic and disturbing, these exhibits gave us an understanding of this particular tragic event and of the horrors of war in general.

As I thought about the divisions among people in my own country, the United States, all of the hate-filled rhetoric spewing from the mouths of politicians, and the move to silence voices from outside the mainstream, I couldn’t help thinking that some of these measures might be applied there, as well. What if we truly acknowledged that past? What if we shared our bounty? What if we asked for forgiveness? For now, I will remember what I learned in Rwanda. I will cling fast to hope. 

Photographs by Suzanne Kamata

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

Sneaky Sneakers

By Suzanne Kamata

So there I was, jacket zipped, MP3 player charged and loaded, sneakers laced and tied. Just as I was about to go out the door to embark on my power walk, I realised that I’d left the keys on the table in the other room. No one else was in the house. What a bother!

I considered my options. One, I could go out and leave the house unlocked, but I didn’t want to do that. Two, I could try to crawl on my hands and knees to the table without letting my feet touch the floor. Three, I could take off my jacket, lay it down like a carpet, and step on that instead of the bare wooden floor. Four, I could untie, unlace, and step out of my shoes and, in my socks, go get the keys.

I’ve lived in Japan for over 20 years, so I know better than to wear shoes in the house. After all this time, I can’t bring myself to wear shoes indoors in the United States, either, though I was brought up treading on carpet while shod. Most of my footwear is of the slip-on variety—clogs, flip-flops, pumps, loafers—but I still prefer lace-up athletic shoes for exercise.

On this day, I managed to walk on my knees to the table, grab the keys, and get back to the entryway, all without letting my soles touch the floor.

Shortly after that, I was again standing in an entryway while visiting an American friend in Kamakura. My shoes were laced and tied. She had just pulled on her boots and zipped them when she discovered that she had forgotten something. I was prepared to commiserate with her about the nuisance of taking off one’s shoes when, to my surprise, she re-entered the house with her boots on, to retrieve the forgotten bag.

My jaw dropped. This friend had also lived in Japan for a very long time. “You go into your house with your shoes on?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s too much trouble to take them off.”

Perhaps this was common. Maybe all over Japan, people were secretly stepping onto the floors of their homes in spike-heeled sandals and hiking boots, and who knows what else!

Curious to know, I asked a Japanese friend—an older woman, with grown children—if she’d ever done such a thing.

“Well,” she said, leaning close, “sometimes in winter, when I’ve already got my boots on, I quickly step inside and hope no one’s watching.”

Again, my jaw dropped. “And what about your children?”

“If they did it, I would scold them,” she assured me. “We’re not supposed to wear shoes in the house.”

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Notes from Japan

A Day with Dinosaurs

Photographs and Narrative by Suzanne Kamata

My day job is “associate professor,” so I sometimes attend academic conferences. When I learned of an upcoming conference on language teaching in Fukui Prefecture, which I had never been to, I was eager to sign up. Sure, I wanted to hear all the cutting-edge theories about teaching English to language learners – how to motivate my students to write haiku, how to use AI, and so on – but my primary reason was to see the dinosaur bones.

Although at one time it seems that dinosaurs pretty much roamed the whole world, fossils of dinosaur bones weren’t discovered in Japan until 1989. Those bones were found in Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture. Since then, even more bones have been discovered, and a museum ̶ Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum ̶ opened in 2000. As part of the pre-conference activities, the host university had arranged for a trip to the museum. A free shuttle but would depart at 11:30am.

I consulted an app on my smartphone and determined that it would take me about five hours to reach Fukui Station from my home in Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. I would have to take a bus, a train, another train, and the high-speed bullet train. After a recent trip to Tokyo, I had learned how to use an electronic transit card, which was basically an app on my phone. This app could be used to breeze through ticket gates at train stations, as well as on buses and subways.

I got up at 5:30am on the day of the museum tour. My husband dropped me off at the bus station. I got on the bus and got off in Osaka. Then I took a train to Kyoto, which was mobbed with travelers. Although I thought I could get on the next train, the so-called Thunderbird, with my app, I discovered that I needed to have a reservation. I suppose I could have made one on my smartphone while standing in line, but I was confused. I left the platform and queued up to buy a reserved ticket from the vending machine, which disrupted my tight schedule and meant I would not be able to make it to Fukui in time for the free shuttle bus.

The Thunderbird goes straight from Kyoto to Fukui with few stops in between. The scenery is mostly composed of rice fields and squat mountains. The monotonous view was calming. About an hour later, the train pulled into Tsuruga where I had to switch to the brand-new Hokuriku Shinkansen for the last seventeen minutes of my journey. In my rush to finish my business at the vending machine in Kyoto, I had inadvertently booked a seat in the most luxurious car. I was the only one there.

I texted a friend who was also attending the conference. She had already arrived. I told her that I would be late, and that I wouldn’t be able to ride the bus with her. This was Japan, where everything was always on time! However, the organisers were Americans, and they were willing to wait for me. Hooray!

As soon as I got to Fukui Station, with its moving animatronic raptor keeping guard out front, I hopped into a taxi and finally arrived at the university, where the bus was indeed waiting. I sprinted onboard, apologised to my fellow passengers, and thanked the organiser profusely.

The museum was impressive, as advertised. Replicas of dinosaurs discovered in such far-flung locales as Morocco and Mongolia were on display. There were, of course, also exhibits of the five dinosaurs and one bird species discovered in Fukui, including the long-necked stubby-legged Fukuititan, the herbivorous Fukuisaurus, and the Fukuiraptor. Although the museum offers an excavation experience where visitors can pretend to dig and discover fossils, my friend and I just walked around looking at all of the cool rocks and bones.

Having gone through my son’s dinosaur obsession when he was young, I could remember some of the dinosaur’s names – the Ankylosaurus with its bumpy back, the Stegosaurus, and Pterodactyl. When we were ready to take a break, my friend and I made our way to the cafeteria for dino-themed snacks.

While many famous destinations in Japan are struggling with over-tourism, Fukui, while slightly off the beaten track, has a pleasantly relaxing vibe. Things may change with the new bullet train, but for now, I recommend it as a fascinating horde-free place to visit.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Excerpt

Cinnamon Beach

Title: Cinnamon Beach

Author: Suzanne Kamata

Publisher: Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing

Olivia

Olivia had cruised along I-26 from the capital to the coast of South Carolina more times than she could count, but this time was different. Back in the day, she had ridden shotgun in a girlfriend’s convertible, with a passel of other co-eds in the back, on their way to spring break and beer and boys at the beach. Or, another time, it had been in her yellow VW Beetle, on the way to see the do-gooder surfer guy she thought she couldn’t live without, the one who spent the summer at Myrtle Beach and took her to that place where they tossed their clam shells onto a sawdust-covered floor. Then there was that excursion to Hilton Head Island with Masahiro, before they got married, the one where he freaked out when he saw an alligator sunbathing on the golf course green.

Later, she’d driven to Charleston for an academic conference where she’d presented her paper on Aiken-born writer Gamel Woolsey. And then there had been that trip to promote her own short story collection – her first ever book tour! When their kids were small, they’d met up at the Isle of Palms with her brother Ted and his wife Parisa and their daughter and two sets of grandparents — the good old days. Olivia felt an arrow pierce her heart. This time, it was just Olivia and her two teenagers in a rental car. A minivan. She wasn’t used to driving such a big car. In Japan, she drove what they called a toaster-shaped Kei car, which was small enough to navigate the narrow roads in their neighborhood.

         “Why don’t you drive faster?” Yuto asked from the back seat. He’d been more or less silent for the first hour of the trip, busy filming roadside novelties with his smartphone, which he’d later post on Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok or whatever – she couldn’t keep up.

         “Why?” Oliva asked, irritated. She looked into her rearview mirror, and saw his head, topped by a baseball cap, hovering over his phone. He’d bought a SIM card before leaving Tokushima. For all she knew, he was chatting with his friends back home.

         “Because everybody’s passing you,” he said.

         As if to prove his point, a massive semi whooshed past them, followed by three more cars, all made in Japan. She glanced at the speedometer and confirmed that she was, indeed, driving the speed limit.

Olivia had read somewhere that early in the pandemic, the highways were so tantalizingly devoid of traffic that many drivers could not resist pressing down on the gas pedal. The highway patrol had raked in the bucks from the speeding tickets they’d issued, back when just about every other business was gasping for breath. But Olivia was used to driving slowly. Also, to be honest, she wasn’t in a hurry to get where they were going. To be completely honest, she was struggling with the desire to turn the car around and go back to Columbia.

         She looked in the rearview mirror again to check on Sophie. As expected, she was engrossed in her manga, oblivious to the scraps of blown-out tires and English-language billboards on the side of the road urging her to repent. Her hearing aids were in her lap.

“Anyone need to stop?” she asked. “Looks like there’s a service station up ahead.”

She thought she heard a murmur of agreement, and she wanted to use the restroom anyway, and take a moment before hurtling on into this dreaded not-a-vacation, so she eased onto the next exit ramp.

Once the car was parked, she leaned over the back seat and tapped Sophie’s knee. She signed “bathroom?” – one hand making a “W. C’ like an OK sign with an open O. Olivia was sure that it was an obscene gesture in some European country – Italy, maybe – just as the Japanese sign for “older brother” meant “fuck you” in America.

Sophie nodded and pushed the thick manga off of her lap. They went in together, Olivia waiting outside the bathroom while her daughter went in first. When she came out, Olivia handed her a couple of crumpled dollar bills. “Buy a snack or a drink,” she signed.

Inside the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror, far enough back to take in at least half of herself. Her shalwar kameez with the Parisa! label stitched in back was not as wrinkled as she’d expected. This one, in a Palmetto print with a nod to the South Carolina state tree, had a touch of polyester. She was wearing it as kind of conciliatory gesture toward her sister-in-law, the eponymous Parisa!

A few years back, Parisa had come up with the idea of marketing the traditional tunic and pants combo of Southeast Asian women to ladies who lunch in the South. Instead of stitching them up into the usual jewel-toned silks and cottons of her parents’ India, she chose Liberty of London florals, playful prints, and alternative materials, such as paper. The “pajama pant suits” had taken off locally, and then nationally, after a few significant influencers had posted photos of themselves dressed in Parisa! on their social media. The outfits were classic, flattering to just about every body type, and they were super comfortable. Now, Parisa’s fan base included female politicians, writers, and talk show hosts. Parisa! had become a household name.

Olivia smoothed down the front of her tunic with the palms of her hands, then swiped at the smudges of mascara under her eyes with a pinky. There was a dent between her eyebrows. If only she had been injected with Botox! If only she were ten years younger! She sighed, turned away from the mirror, finished her business and went back to the car.

Yuto and Sophie were already in the back seat, buckled up and ready to go. Sophie had popped open a can of Diet Coke.

“What’d you get?” Olivia asked.

Yuto held up a bag of fried pork rinds. “Want some?”

“Uh, no thanks.” Sure, Olivia had lived in the South, but she’d never become quite that Southern.

 

Parisa

Parisa had just finished making the last bed when she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. She spent a few extra seconds smoothing the coverlet, stalling, before moving to look out the window.

         Normally, when the family gathered at the beach house, they would go to the linen closet themselves, get the sheets, and make their own beds. They had their favorites. The kids liked the ones with faded cartoon characters, which reminded them of being innocent and carefree, of those days before the anxiety of zits and dating and final exams. Olivia went for the sheets with the highest thread count, which were probably nicer than the ones on her bed in Japan. Parisa didn’t think they could afford such sheets, even if her husband was a professional golfer. It had been a while since he had won any tournaments, and she seemed to remember that he’d lost one of his endorsements. And in Japan, didn’t they sleep on mats or something? Parisa had seen Olivia petting the bed after she’d finished making it, as if she enjoyed the silky smoothness. But this time, Parisa made the beds for them. It wasn’t a normal time. Parisa wondered if life would ever feel normal again.

         As if sensing her mood, Chester padded into the room and nudged her with his snout. The golden retriever shed something awful in the warmer months, and he left a patch of fur on her maroon USC T-shirt. She plucked at the dog hair, her fingers grazing the Gamecocks emblem. She’d worn the shirt on purpose to remind her of how they had all met, she and Ted and Olivia.

         They’d all been students at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She and Olivia had been in the same class, but they had not met until Ted introduced them. Ted had been a year ahead. They had worked together at a swanky restaurant, one where the staff had been trained in table settings and wine pairings. In between bussing tables, Ted had told Parisa about the bistro that he planned to open himself someday, and she’d told him about her dream of becoming a fashion designer. Once they’d started to get serious, she’d brought him home to meet her parents, who had immigrated from New Delhi back in the 1960s – and her older brothers, who’d been born in Greer, South Carolina, just as she had, but who had been raised to be good Indian boys.

         She remembered how her parents had met them at the door, and how, after stepping inside, Ted had gotten down on his hands and knees and touched their feet in greeting. Apparently, he had seen someone do this in a movie or something. Parisa had been both embarrassed for him, and deeply moved by his effort. She had remained standing, twisting her hands together. Her mother, who had dressed in a peacock-blue sari for the occasion, had taken it all in stride, as her due. Her father had chuckled and ordered him to his feet.

         They’d led him into the living room where her brothers, Arun and Anil, sat waiting in armchairs. The Indian-style swing, which hung from the ceiling, and which Arun usually preferred, was empty. When they got up to shake his hand, Parisa was momentarily worried that Ted would try out a “namaste” on them, but he didn’t. He shook their hands, as he would those of any American, and when invited, sat down on the sofa. And then they’d all grilled him mercilessly. Where was he born? What did his parents do? What was he studying? What did he aspire to do in the future? Where did he want to live after graduation? And so on.

         The Hispanic housekeeper had brought out a silver tray of chai and Indian sweets – laddoos and barfi – which Ted had dutifully consumed. He had raved about them, not realizing that Parisa’s mother had bought them at the Asian market. She spent as little time in the kitchen as possible.

         Once they were back in the car, about to drive back to campus, Ted took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Wow,” he said. “That was grueling.”

         She’d worried that it had all been too much for him, but a week or so later, he’d taken her to meet his parents, who’d moved down to South Carolina from Michigan. They had been kind and welcoming, a bit more subdued than her own parents. Ted’s mother had served meatloaf with mashed potatoes, and peach pie for dessert. Although they had asked one or two questions about her parents’ backgrounds and jobs, they hadn’t pried.

It had taken a bit longer for Ted to introduce her to his sister.

      “She’s kind of…different,” he’d said, more than once. “I worry about her sometimes.” A cloud seemed to form over him every time her name came up. He’d frown and lower his voice as he itemized his concerns: She didn’t have any sort of career plan for after graduation. She liked to write poetry, and she sometimes consulted tarot cards. Also, her taste in men left a lot to be desired. She tended to go out with guys who had earrings and wore eyeliner. Often, they played in bands. One had been arrested for drug possession. Luckily, these romances never lasted long.

         “When am I going to meet your her?” Parisa had asked more than once, even as she harbored her own reservations. What if Olivia didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like Olivia? What would that mean for their future together?

         “Yeah, soon,” Ted always said, but the occasion never seemed to arrive.

         One Friday evening, when they were both off of work, he invited her over to his apartment for dinner for the first time. He was planning a feast, he told her. She wondered if this was it, if he would propose.

         Parisa dressed up in a black linen sundress. Her shapely legs were a toasty brown, so she didn’t bother with hose. She showed up on Ted’s doorstep with a bottle of wine. He was wearing an apron over his blue button-down Oxford shirt and khakis, which was cute. He leaned in and kissed her, and she caught a whiff of Polo. With one hand, he took the wine, murmuring appreciatively, and with the other at her back, ushered her into the living room/dining area.

         The apartment, which he shared with two other guys, was neat and tidy, so unlike a typical college guy’s domain. Healthy green plants flourished in the corners of the room, and an aquarium gurgled pleasantly. The guppies and black mollies always swam in clear water, so it was obvious that someone – Ted – regularly changed it. There were no stray socks or empty beer cans or empty pizza boxes anywhere in sight. No old newspapers, no cockroaches scuttling about. The air was redolent with sizzling steaks and butter-fried garlic. A colorful salad in a teak bowl already sat at the center of the table, which was covered in damask. Candles stood sentinel on either side of the bowl, ready to be lit. Cloth napkins tucked into pewter rings were settled beside each earthenware plate.

         “Are you hungry?” he asked, a hopeful lilt in his voice.

         “Famished.” Seeing how much effort he had put into the evening, she’d already decided that she would praise the food no matter what. She would eat every morsel. But she could already tell that it would be delicious.

         He uncorked and poured the wine. She sat down at the table and spread her napkin over her lap. He brought out the perfectly seared steaks, the stuffed mushrooms, and steamed broccoli. Once everything was just so, he took his place across from her. They toasted and clinked their wine glasses together, took sips.

         “Yum!” she said, lifting her fork. She had just taken her first bite when the phone rang.

         A flicker of annoyance passed over Ted’s face. He ignored the call at first, but then the answering machine beeped, and they heard a tremulous voice. “Ted? Are you there? I need your help.”

         He sighed gustily, and pushed back from the table. “Sorry, it’s my sister. Better see what she wants.”

         Parisa continued eating, chewing quietly so that she could listen to Ted’s half of the conversation.

         “What? How did that happen? No, never mind, don’t tell me. Where are you? Okay, sit tight. Stay in the store, where there are people around. I’ll be there soon.”

         He hung up the phone, squared his shoulders, and turned back to the table. “I’m so sorry. My sister ran out of gas in a bad part of town. I have to go help her.”

         Parisa surveyed the table. She knew that Ted had spent a lot of money and time on this dinner, and if they left the table now, it would be wasted. That’s when she understood how much Ted truly cared about his sister, what a good, kind brother he was. What a good, kind, caring man.

         “Do you mind if I go with you?” She could finally meet the mysterious Olivia.

         He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Not at all.”

         Ted grabbed a jerry can which he just happened to have on hand. She remembered that he had been a boy scout, and that their mantra was “be prepared.” They drove out to the edge of town, where Parisa had once gone with a sorority sister to deliver Meals-on-Wheels. Parisa wondered briefly if Olivia had gone out there to buy drugs, then quickly quashed the thought. There were many reasons why she might have ventured into the area. Maybe she had gotten lost.

         Ted’s jaw was tensed on the mostly silent ride. Finally, they pulled into a convenience store parking lot. The windows were covered with grills. Almost as soon as Ted had killed the engine, the door opened and a waifish young woman with black hair, done in a bob, pale skin, and fire engine red lips came rushing out. In the harsh light, Parisa could see that her eyes were surrounded in kohl. She looked like a goth Snow White. She was wearing a black leather jacket over a tight leopard print dress, and her legs were covered in fishnet hose. With her black Doc Martens, she seemed as different from Parisa’s sorority sisters, with their curling-ironed blonde hair and Lily Pulitzer pants, as a girl could get.

         The rear car door opened, and Olivia slid in, dragging the back of her hand under her nose. Parisa then saw that it was not kohl surrounding her eyes, but smeared mascara. Clearly, she had been crying.

         “Are you okay?” Ted asked. “Did someone hurt you?”

         “Only my heart,” she said with a sniffle.

         Ted looked over at Parisa and rolled his eyes. “Boyfriend,” he mouthed.

         “Hi,” Parisa said, leaning over the seat. “I’m Parisa.”

         “Ted’s girlfriend,” Olivia said. “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you. Good things. Nice to finally meet you.” She smiled, and Parisa smiled back. She knew right away that they would be friends.

 

About the Book:

Cinnamon Beach is a multicultural tragicomedy, told from three female perspectives, in which an American writer living in Japan returns to South Carolina to scatter the ashes of her brother while trying to maintain the “perfect-family” facade she created from afar and support her Indian American sister-in-law who wants a future which might upset everyone. Sparks fly at an impromptu book-signing when the author reconnects with her college friend, now a famous African American country music star, and her daughter who is deaf finds ways to communicate with a secret first-love. The book will be published worldwide by Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing on August 6, 2024. It is now available for preorder.

About the Author:

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan, and later moved to South Carolina where she graduated from the University of South Carolina. She is the author of the award-winning short story collection, The Beautiful One Has Come and four previous novels – Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008), which has been translated into Russian; Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible (GemmaMedia, 2013) winner of multiple awards including the APALA Honor Award and the Paris Book Festival Grand Prize; Screaming Divas(Simon & Schuster, 2014) which was named to the ALA Rainbow List; and The Baseball Widow (Wyatt-MacKenzie,2021), IPPY Gold Winner and 2022 NYC Big Book Award Winner. She has also received awards from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Independent Publisher’s Association, SCBWI, and Half the World Global Literati Awards. Additionally, she has edited three well-received anthologies, and her essays have appeared in Real Simple, Brain, Child, literarymama.com and many others. She has an MFA from the University of British Columbia, and teaches English at Naruto University of Education in Japan. She lives in Tokushima Prefecture with her husband and cats.

Categories
Notes from Japan

Of Peace and Cheese

By Suzanne Kamata

Here is my son, as a toddler, an ice cream cone in one hand, the other signing “peace.” Here is my daughter at five, posing in front of the Inland Sea, two fingers held up in the air. Here is my son, aged ten, sitting on a park bench in Charleston, South Carolina. Peace!

From pretty much the time that my Japanese-born children learned to say “cheese,” whenever they’ve found themselves in the presence of a camera, they stuck up two fingers in a “V.” Pick up any family photo from our children’s first ten years, and you’ll find someone making this gesture.

It drove my American parents crazy. “Be natural,” they’d say. “Don’t do that!” Candid shots were nearly impossible because as soon as my kids realised they were about to be photographed, those two fingers went up in the air.

My children were not exceptions, of course. I first noticed this practice when I arrived in Japan over thirty years ago. I have a drawer full of photos of myself and various Japanese kids making the sign. Me, I sometimes did it ironically. For Japanese youth, it seemed to be a Pavlovian response.

It hadn’t always been this way. An older Japanese woman friend told me that when she was a child, no one made a “V” when having their picture taken. She lamented that her own children had picked up the same habit, that her daughter signed “peace” even in her wedding photos. When I asked her how it all got started, she couldn’t tell me. However, theories abound.

According to one source, the trend originated in a baseball manga. A character made the “V” for Victory sign in imitation of Winston Churchill. The gesture caught on, and remains.

One of my foreign friends, hoping to break her kids of the tendency, refused to take their picture if they were making the sign. I was not quite so strict. The peace sign may, in fact, be the Japanese equivalent of the smile. In the United States, whenever someone has their picture taken, the photographer tries to get a grin out of them. I’m sure that many of us have faked a smile in order to comply with custom. I certainly have.

Here in Japan, however, smiling for the camera is relatively new. Back in the day, only the very vulgar would show their teeth. In school and other formal photos, gravitas is seemingly required. Thus, in the group portrait taken at my own wedding, the Japanese guests wear poker faces, better suited to a court date. My American relatives are all smiles, though their posed grins may be frozen in place. No one, I might add, is making the peace sign. My husband and I got married in Hawaii, so everyone’s hands are raised with pinkie and thumb extended, a gesture that means “hang loose” in the islands. Shaka shaka.

These days, thanks to the influence of K-pop artists in Japan, people posing for photos are likely to use another gesture. At a recent party celebrating graduating students at the university where I teach, we all got into formation.

“What should we do?” one professor asked. “Peace signs?”

“How about K-pop hearts?” I suggested. The others agreed. We touched our thumbs and index fingers, forming hearts. The picture was taken.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Notes from Japan

The Cherry Blossom Forecast

Photographs and Narrative by Suzanne Kamata

Nothing says “Japan” quite like cherry blossoms.

As I write this, the cherry trees on the campus of the university where I work are adorned with deep pink blossoms. There are several varieties of sakura, which bloom at different times. The earliest are the Kawazukura-zakura, which blossom as early as February in some parts of Japan. In a couple of weeks, the more commonly known frothy pale pink flowers of the Somei Yoshino will be seen. Usually, this timed to perfectly coincide with graduation ceremonies, and opening ceremonies welcoming new students. Every speech seems to begin with a mention of the ephemeral blooms.

Another kind, the Shidare-zakura (weeping sakura), is often found in traditional Japanese gardens.  There used to be a Shidare-zakura across the street from my house. I enjoyed seeing the flowers, garlands swaying in the breeze, but, unfortunately, the owner of the property cut the tree down

My family and I used to make at least one outing each spring to roam among the cherry blossoms. Now, it’s just my husband and me, but as I previous years, we will probably visit a park or mountainside, transformed into a fairytale landscape, and take selfies while pondering the impermanence of youth and beauty.

Many people will gather on blue tarp spread under boughs to partake of lavish boxed lunches and drink beer. The park surrounding the former grounds of Tokushima Castle will be thronged with merrymakers. During the pandemic, Hanami (cherry-blossom-viewing) was frowned upon. At that time, the park was eerily vacant. I imagine that for many Japanese, not being able to participate in this traditional event was one of the greatest hardships of 2020-22.

In February, TV announcers are newspapers begin to forecast the passage of blossoms across the peninsula. It goes something like this:

In northern Japan, snowflakes flutter and fall. Winter hangs on.

Cherry tree twigs stick out of bare branches like witchy fingers.

Every year meteorologists predict the appearance of cherry blossoms.

How do they know when the buds will release their blooms?

Well, from March, once a day, sometimes twice, someone checks on 58 designated barometer trees. One is near Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Most people don’t know where the rest of the trees are. It’s a secret!

People from all over Japan send in photos of cherry blossom buds. Team cherry blossom examines all the photos and tracks the progress of the trees.

Tightly clenched buds mean it may be another month.

About ten days later, the tips change color – yellow-green.

And then, a deeper darker green, like moss in a forest.

When the tips become pink, get ready for cherry blossom viewing.

After five or six blossoms have appeared, the Meteorological Agency announces the start of the cherry blossom season.

In Kyushu, cherry trees may bloom in March. Gradually, buds open, releasing frothy flowers all the way up to Hokkaido, in a wave of pink and white.

Cherry blossom petals flutter and fall.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International